


A Flash Of Crimson Red

by Ffwydriad



Series: Just The Same But, You Know, Completely Different [4]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Character Study, Deleted Scenes, Gen, Magic, Magic and Science, SHIELD, SHIELD's kind of sketchy policies towards supers, Superpowers, Wanda Maximoff being awesome, re: superpowers, wanda and clint being friends gives me life btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 08:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6746365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(SPOILERS FOR ULTRON: EXTINCTION! This Is Not A Standalone Fic!!)</p><p>The world flashes red, for an instant, and in that moment everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Flash Of Crimson Red

 

_"You did good, kid-" Clint starts to say, turning to where Pietro stands on the ground before the lifeboat smiling. He is interrupted, however, by the flash of light as a repulsor tears through the speedster's chest leaving a painfully bright red hole in it's wake._

  
_He falls down to the ground as a thought to be dead Ultron drone hits it's final target._

_In the heart of the city, Wanda turns to the Ultron Prime who has crawled before her, either to beg her mercy or to activate the core she guards. Her mind goes blank, a link severed, and as Ultron starts to say her name, she screams out, eyes a scarlet red and hands outstretched, wielding more power than she has used over the course of the entire battle._

_Pietro Maximoff lies dead, inches away from the child he saved and the step to safety._

_Wanda Maximoff screams out in the center of the city,  her pained voice echoing through the thin air, through the silence of the abandoned city._

_The world flashes red._

 

_The flash of scarlet, crimson red came pouring out, more than sparks, more than hexes, a veritable wave of enchantment that crashed over Novi Grad from the center, echoing through the buildings and the dirt and the people on the edge, looking on. Every single Ultron even touching the island fell to parts._

_And lying, on the ground before the life boat, his dead body still bleeding, Pietro was enveloped by the wave._

_The redness dissipated. The onlookers shook their eyes in confusion, uncertain of what had happened save for the longing that lingered in their minds._

_On the ground before the life boat, Pietro Maximoff lay there, whole. He pushes himself off of the ground, weak, his brain confused. Clint Barton extends an uncertain hand. He has seen unusual things, but this one takes the cake._

_In the center of the city, on the floor of the church, Wanda collapses to the ground as the red energy fizzles away. Her hair is spread in the dust like a halo around her and she lies there, eyes shut, breathing the long slow breaths of someone who has been awake for so long and finally succumbed to sleep. Her skin is dirty from the fight but her face has been marked by the clear tear streaks, and it is as the redness finally fades from her hands that the wave of redness dissipates._

 

 

_“Lady Wanda is here with me!” Thor replies, staring at her and holding his hammer. “She will not survive the blast –“_

 

_The Vision flies in to the church and picks up the unconscious body of Wanda, staring at Thor for a spare moment before ascending in to the sky with her in arm._

 

 

Wanda wakes up, weary headed, but alive. Her body aches, but it is her head that burns with a migraine, and thoughts are hard to formulate. She is moving, she can feel the air speeding past her face. "Pietro?" She questions, trying to open her eyes and failing, the wind to quick and too much dust in the air.

 

"He is safe." Comes the robotic voice in reply. "My scans place him on the Helicarrier, where he is receiving medical attention. I am taking you there now."

 

"What happened?" She asks, trying to sit up, only to realize she is being carried in arms. The Vision adjusts its hold on her, allowing her to take some of the wait and letting her move so that she is holding on to him instead of being carried. she opens her eyes as the dust finally begins to clear from her eyes. 

 

"The plan worked." The Vision tells her. "Novi Grad was destroyed, but there were no further casualties. In fact, while it is hard to say, current belief is that no one died in the entire incident."

 

Her mind flashes to Pietro, to the sudden pain and anguish and then the long quiet. She is weak, and she can't extend her powers far enough to find his mind. She trusts the robot, but not enough. 

 

The Helicarrier looms in sight and she stares at it, preparing to arrive. Her legs are still weak, her whole body is weak, but at least there is not a large crowd, awaiting her arrival.

 

_The Vision lands gently next to where the life boat carrying Pietro is, as they run him and many others off to medical treatment. Clint shakes his hand, as someone offers assistance, and is the only one there who stares up as the Vision hovers over the Helicarrier’s deck, letting Wanda step down._

 

_As it starts to fly away, Clint stops him. “You aren’t going to stay?” He asks, though his tone, while casual, implies the real question – ‘Where are you going?’_

 

_“There is one remaining body of Ultron.” The Vision announces, calmly. Wanda moves as if she will go with him, but the Vision holds out a hand to stop her. “Do not worry. I will deal with them myself.”_

 

 

She stands there for a few moments, and then Clint offers his arm as something for her to lean on. She takes it, and he walks her over to an even more out of the way corner, where they stand in silence for a few minutes.

 

"The battle is done." He tells her, interrupting the silence but not quite prompting her to talk. "We did it. We won. You won."

 

"Yeah." She says. She can see the fine dust still drifting down, causing the sky to glimmer as the sun began to set. It was beautiful in a way.  It still doesn't feel real, in a way, as if after all of that fight there was no satisfactory ending. Just destruction, and silence.

 

"I know what you did." He says, in a quieter voice. "Back there, with Pietro." 

 

"I don't know what you're talking about." She tells him, backing away from him, voice dropping as well. It's mostly honest. She doesn't even know what she did, back there, with Pietro. But she knows that Pietro died. And she knows that he isn't dead now.

 

"Yes you do." He replies. "You need to get better at lying. I'm not planning on telling anyone. Shield would have tried to recruit you for the mind stuff you do, but with this? They aren't Hydra, but they also aren't going to be asking."

 

 

"You're Shield." She says, and she doesn't even need to read his mind to know it. "Why haven't you told them, then, if you know?"

 

 

"Because I'm a good person first, friend second, hero third, and Shield agent fourth." Clint tells her. "I told you before, Wanda, your life is your choice."

 

Her choice. How long has it been since her life was her choice? It wasn't her choice to get these powers, to live on the streets, to lose her mother. Nothing in her life had been her choice in so long, save for Ultron. Save for leaving Ultron, for fighting with the Avengers.

 

"Pietro will join your Avengers." Wanda tells him, a statement of fact. Clint nods, as if he'd already assumed it. "If I stayed here, with him, how long until they discover what I can do?"

 

"The Avengers? Depends. Not long, though. Shield will follow close behind them." He tells her. "How well can you control this?"

 

"I can't." She admits. "I can't even control my normal powers. It's - I can read minds, but I can't control what they see. I can destroy things with the magic - the redness - but I can't do anything else. I've tried shields, but they are not stable. The fact I was able to do anything at all, to save my brother, it was mere luck-"

 

"No." Clint corrects. "It was love." That hangs heavy in the air for a few moments, said far too loud. "If you can't control this, then you need a teacher. If you stay with the Avengers, stay with Shield, they will try to train you to be useful. But you said magic?"

 

"What else could my powers be?" Wanda asks him. "I have heard the scientific terms they have tossed around. Neural electric interference. Telepathy and Telekinesis. None of that can bring the dead to life. Maybe there is a scientific explanation. But this is witchcraft."

 

"Well, someone's gonna want to see you burn for what you can do." Clint tells her with a bitter laugh. "I know some people who can train you. In magic, or whatever this is. Help you to control it."

"I - I'd be abandoning Pietro." Wanda mutters. "After everything that has happened, I'm not sure I could leave him."

 

"Go and be with your brother, then." Clint tells her. "I'll talk to you again, when the carrier lands. I'm going to talk to some people, figure out how to get you to some friends of mine, if that's what you choose to do."

 

He doesn't need to tell her where to go. She walks directly through the halls of the helicarrier until she finds her brother in the medical bay, forcing himself to remain still as they place his leg in to a cast. "I tell you, it will be healed before you're done!" Pietro says, and she laughs. His head shoots up as she comes in.

 

"Wanda! I didn't know how you made it off of the city." He tells her. "I am sorry, I should have come back for you-"

 

"Do not worry about it, brother." Wanda tells him. They talk, aimlessly, about nothing at all, relishing in each other's presence until Wanda tells him"I - I think I might be going away for a while. Would you mind?"

 

"Yes." Pietro says immediately. "But do it regardless. You always wanted to travel the world."

 

"No, that was you." Wanda says, "But now you are fast enough to go anywhere, no?"

 

"Call me, if you need anything." He says, and she knows he does not mean over the phone. "I will come running to you, always, no matter what. I will always be waiting."

 

"You're a loser." Wanda whispers, but she hugs her brother tightly, and the doctors in the room approach her, asking to take a look at the injuries she has spent all of this time ignoring.

 

When the helicarrier sets down, she says her farewells to Pietro, masked as an excuse to go and grab some food. The real goodbyes were like all of the true conversations of the last months, inside their minds, unknown to everyone around them. She makes her way down to where she can see Clint, in a different corner, watching the people go by.

 

"I know someone who will meet you in Transia." Clint says. "I met them in Brazil, actually, but they are close enough for a few days. Shield will deny anything such as magic exists, always qualifying it, but I never got that. There's too much, in the world, that we could never explain."

 

"How will I know how to find them?" Wanda asks him. 

 

"They will find you." He replies. There is a silence. "You're still uncertain about leaving, aren't you?" The silence drags on farther. 

 

_Clint locks eyes with Wanda. They stand in an out of the way corner in a European Shield base, everyone who would typically be watching them instead too caught up in trying to figure out how to deal with all of Sokovians everywhere._

_“I know why you have to do this.” He says, staring at her. “But do you?”_

_“I have no idea what I’m doing.” The girl admits. “But I know why I’m doing it.” She pauses at that, breathing in. “I wanted to thank you. I’m not certain anyone other than Pietro has believed in me like that in a long time.”_

_“I knew you needed it.” Clint tells her, grasping her hand gently. “Sure we got to a rough start, but I want you to know that I respect and trust you. You know where to find me if you ever need any help.”_

_She hugs him then, tightly, and he mostly stands there stock still in a bit of shock. With that being done, she smiles at him and disperses in to the nearby crowd of refugees, and within minutes even he has lost her._

 

 

Wanda walks through the crowd. Her focus is on the intent that she is sending in to everyone and everything that she is not Wanda Maximoff. She doesn't know what they will see, but it will not be her. She hopes that by the time the computers have caught on that she is gone, she will be long gone.

 

There are stations set up. Stark Industries is handing out money to those whose homes were destroyed in the air above Novi Grad, hiring people to work on the rebuilding the city, and giving everyone of the refugees a wad of cash and a ticket to wherever they choose. It's not enough, but it's something, and in the back of her mind Wanda has to think, where was this all those years ago, when my mother died? Where was this money then?

  
She takes the money. The person who hands it to her gives her a brochure explaining how to get a job in Stark Industries - offering training for free and guaranteed employment until Novi Grad is fully restored. The city will never be fully restored, but the promise means something. She takes the brochure and pulls out the napkin with words scrawled on it in a messy hand.

 

" _A train ticket._ " She says in Sokovian.

 

" _Do you have a place specific?"_ The woman behind the desk asks, her Sokovian broken but understandable.

 

She laughs at the woman, cheerful at her own idiocy, her voice echoing. " _Of course._ " She says. " _One ticket to Transia, if you please."_

 

**Author's Note:**

> what wanda why are you the best~~
> 
>  
> 
> i didn't originally plan to have wanda leave, instead fixing the civil war problem by having the maximoff twins stay out of it, but instead i'm kind of swapping wanda and pietro, except wanda isn't dead. in the canon, i am almost certain wanda's powers would be used in kind of shady ways by shield (re: interrogations) but there is no way she wouldn't get a target on her back by both good and bad guys if she has anything close to her comics powers i mean bringing the dead to life is only a start
> 
> (also seriously i love clint + wanda being friends they should do a new cap's kooky quartet it would be great no lie)
> 
> i'm not certain who wanda's going to meet up with, which is weird but ok whatever


End file.
